Vancouver filmmaker’s new documentary is helping to transform difficult children

Wouldn’t we all like to know how to reduce crime, save money and raise happier, healthier children? Vancouver filmmaker Maureen Palmer’s new documentary promises just that through positive parenting interventions, starting from a very young age.

Abbotsford mom Pam Williams sought out one of the programs, Triple P parenting, because her three-year-old son Jackson was often aggressive and angry, especially when she said no to him.

“We had some major anger issues,” Williams said. “(The program) made a huge difference. Within a couple of months he transformed. He can still be aggressive, but he knows how to handle himself now.”

Triple P parenting includes strategies like slowing down and giving a child 100-per-cent of your attention for periods of time, using quiet time as a calming strategy, and employing a “time out” only as a last resort.

Karen de Montigny, mother of Jilliane, a three-year-old girl who was prone to temper tantrums, talks about the program’s “count-to-eight” strategy, and says when she waits a bit longer for her child to follow her instructions, she is often surprised that it gets done. She says in the documentary that before learning to count to eight, she would have already escalated, repeated herself and started getting frustrated.

Williams said she will be able to use the skills she learned in the program and adapt them as Jackson gets older. She is confident his new-found sense of control will help him in school and as he grows up.

The documentary, written and directed by Palmer, is called Angry Kids and Stressed Out Parents. It cites research showing programs like Triple P parenting with preventing conduct disorder, which increases a person’s likelihood of getting involved in criminal activity.

The film begins with an interview with Marc Lepine’s mother Monique. Lepine murdered 14 young women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique in 1989, and his mother today makes the link between her son’s crimes and his abused and neglected upbringing.

In the documentary, Palmer looks at emerging brain science and three parenting programs, including Triple P, to discover whether such criminal behaviour could be prevented with early intervention that helps kids learn skills like self-control and self-regulation.

Palmer is a former CBC radio and television producer, who now runs Bountiful Films with her partner Helen Slinger. They have written and directed How to Divorce & Not Wreck the Kids, Cat Crazed, and Sext Up Kids. During the filming of Sext Up Kids, Palmer said she saw a lot of anger, particularly in young teens. Her desire to dig down into that and see what the roots and possible solutions might be led her to film Angry Kids and Stressed Out Parents.

The Triple P program was developed in Australia and research shows that children whose parents have used these techniques have reduced use of special education, social services, mental health services, and criminal justice services.

The other two programs Palmer explores in the film are the PAX Good Behaviour Game — a program used in Manitoba elementary schools that encourages learning self-control and that research shows has improved graduation rates and decreased the need for special needs education — and the Abecedarian Program, an early literacy-focused program for very young children.

In the film, Palmer visits the Abecedarian program in a predominantly First Nations neighbourhood in Winnipeg, but the program was initially developed in the 1970s to benefit very poor and predominately black children in North Carolina. Palmer’s documentary quotes statistics showing that children who went through the program 30 years ago are more likely to have graduated from university and work full-time, and less likely to be on social assistance.

Palmer said she chose the three programs because they were evidence-based and had been used for decades.

“The original participants in some of these programs are now in their 30s and 40s and have had happier, healthier and more successful lives than the control group children who did not receive the intervention,” Palmer said, adding that she specifically wanted to focus on programs for kids under the age of six.

“We made that decision because the neuro-science and child development researchers profiled in the film all say interventions have their best chance of success, before the age of six,” Palmer said. “As we delved deeper, we came to understand a reduction in crime was just one of the many benefits of early intervention. There was much less of a burden on government health, social service, education and justice budgets.

“The greatest bang for the taxpayer’s buck is under the age of six.”

She also wanted at least one program to focus on First Nations children because of the discouraging statistics on addiction, physical and mental health, unemployment, incarceration and crime.

Angry Kids and Stressed Out Parents and it will air on CBC’s Doc Zone on Thursday, March 27 at 9 p.m.

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Vancouver filmmaker’s new documentary is helping to transform difficult children

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